Tuesday, December 23, 2008

How God Became a Poet

A woman imagines she is a poet. So she spends her life writing. She feels sometimes as if she is writing to someone far away, someone she has never met, a muse, an angel . . . Who knows who? But he or she is someone who wants to read her every word. She writes and writes.

One day she reads about saints who pray in the same way she writes-praying and praying to a god who never answers. She finds it disturbing to think of an unanswering god. Why doesn't he ever bother to answer? she wonders. One night she writes a long letter to the silent god, bitching at him for never answering his devotees, and for never picking up his phone or answering his mail or email.

But why should I answer you? God writes her back. It’s women like you that piss me off, women who expect something. Women who want something. Women who never stop asking . . .In fact, that’s why I am interviewing for another job. A job where no one knows my name . . .

You could be a poet, the woman suggests . . .

(After that, the woman remembered why she never cared much for gods. And the god remembered why he always disliked women.)